Structural inspection & engineering

Industrial Structures are key assets that businesses and people rely on every day to function safely and effectively. Working with ALS Structural Inspection staff will help you keep them that way.

Effective management of structural integrity is key to ensuring a safe and productive plant. Poor structural integrity management, in some past circumstances, has been associated with major plant structural failures, which have caused:

Loss of Life

Loss of Production

Loss of Reputation

Environmental Impact; and/or

Associated significant financial losses, both in immediate terms and sometimes at even greater levels through consequential loss long into the future

In many fields, both legislation and standards apply specific requirements on asset owners to perform structural integrity assessments to demonstrate their ability to maintain a safe operation.

Our clients look to ALS to gain confidence that their structures are being properly managed, inspected and repaired in compliance with all applicable legislation and standards.

We follow a stepped approach to structural inspection based on the principles of multiple international and Australian standards for Risk Based Inspection (RBI) as well as asset management standards PAS 55 and ISO 55000.

Once clients have engaged ALS for structural integrity work scopes, they find that our approach to managing structural inspections and associated engineering investigations is:

Practical;

Makes use of appropriate skills levels of engineering and inspection staff, backed up by highly experienced engineers who oversee critical process steps;

Uses the best modern inspection techniques and processes. This includes:

The best non-destructive testing techniques (traditional and Advanced NDT).

To support our engineering investigations and our structural inspections, ALS maintains core capability in strain gauge and finite element analysis. Strain gauges are used to record the strain that develops in components when loads are applied to them.

By measuring strain in different directions at and different locations the stress that a component is actually experiencing under load can be assessed. Through our technical experts, ALS can design effective strain gauge inspection programs that assess:

Whether Loads experienced by structures are as intended by design or whether load limits are being exceeded.

How loads are changing under different operating scenarios.

Whether or not cracking is likely to develop in structures.

Assist in determining the expected remaining life of the structure.

Finite Element Analysis (FEA) is a computational analysis tool that allows stress in structures to be accurately estimated based on known engineering laws and principles. Existing designs with included defects can be assessed, as can expected modifications with having to rely on physical prototyping.

The combination of strain gauging and finite element analysis allows ALS excellent capacity to understand the stress conditions that structures encounter under load, both for existing structures and structures yet to be constructed.

Strain gauging and finite element analysis are typically applicable for any structures, however common structures / equipment where ALS has provided these services include:

Civil structures, such as bridges, overpass, steel and concrete buildings and various process building in oil & gas and mining.

Delve deeper into some of the specific techniques, related services and people that ALS provides to our clients to create great structural integrity outcomes at the pages below or contact us direct to learn more.